Wilson Kimball ’86 Brings Her Wheeler Curiosity to Antarctica and Beyond
April 8, 2026
A book, as any avid reader knows, can take you to some incredible places. For Wilson Kimball ’86, that saying rings – or reads – true, as there was one book in particular that took her to the last continent on Earth that she had yet to visit.
“I really love travel, but I didn’t set out to go to all seven continents,” Wilson says. “It was about 2019 when my husband, Jim, started talking about how he wanted to go to Antarctica after he’d read ‘Endurance,’ about the explorer Shackleton.”
While their present-day trip promised to be a bit easier than Shackleton’s epic story of survival, it still came with a few unexpected challenges. Wilson and Jim originally planned their expedition for 2020, but the COVID pandemic delayed their departure by several years. When they later rebooked, they received another surprise: just four days before leaving port, their cruise line called to say the trip was overbooked and asked if they would be willing to postpone again – which they agreed to do.
Last December, Wilson and Jim finally fulfilled their mission. Wilson made sure to bring along a Wheeler School pennant on the adventure to take a school-inspired photo. It was there in the striking polar landscape that she realized she had made it to her seventh continent. “I just thought it was an amazing milestone,” she says. “It hadn’t been a driving force for me, but it ended up being such a cool experience.”
Across all of the climates, continents, and countries she’s visited, Wilson says her travels have offered universal lessons – often from the natural world. “There were naturalists on board our trip who told us about the different habits of animals in Antarctica,” Wilson says. “We learned that male Gentoo penguins gather stones to create the nest, and they share the responsibility of sitting on the eggs and feeding the babies. Or that seals will plop down on icebergs after they hunt – it shows we all need time for rest and relaxation. I just kept thinking there’s so many lessons for humanity in the animal kingdom.”
That sense of intellectual curiosity is something Wilson traces back to her time at Wheeler. She recalls “being obsessed with history in 5th grade. Our textbook was about Mesopotamia and the first known civilization established by the Sumerians. There are just so many formative memories from history with Mr. Smith and Mr. Kasanow. I also remember reading ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books in Mrs. Greenawalt’s class. And I remember building solar collectors on the roof so that we could cook burgers. That was in a science class.”
“The thing that I go back to in my head about Wheeler that makes it so special is that it has a lot of unique experiences that you don’t get elsewhere,” she adds. “Everybody was family and everyone was looking out for each other. The depth of both the education and the connections was so important.”
That exposure to experiential learning has served Wilson well in her professional life as well, as the president and CEO for the Municipal Housing Authority of Yonkers, NY.
“What I like about it is that every day is different,” she says. “It is kind of like Wheeler in that sense. Wheeler wasn’t a school where you went in every day and sat in the same classroom and talked out of a book. You lived it as well as learned it. And I feel like that is what I love about my job.”
That variety, of course, also comes with a variety of challenges. “Every day is a different catastrophe, to be frank!” she says. “We’re not getting funded, there’s a federal government shutdown, or there’s some other kind of issue. You have to think outside the box to solve the problem.
“That’s one of the things Wheeler taught me – how to approach things in a creative way that’s also a business sense kind of way. Wheeler allowed you that space to go in any direction. That kind of nurturing of the mind is unique but necessary, because creative problem solving is 100% of my job.”
Lately, she’s been applying that mindset to sustainability initiatives (and on a larger scale than those solar panels she and her classmates installed on the roof at Wheeler). As a former planning commissioner for Yonkers, her team helped install solar panels and LED lighting throughout the city. Now, she’s focused on developing energy-efficient passive housing for seniors.
“The first one we built has 60 units, and last month’s electric bill that we paid for the whole space, and not just the individual units, was $1,000. It’s the first modular affordable passive house in the state of New York. I’m proud that we’re really pushing the environmental issue and showing that it’s not without challenges, but it’s absolutely worth it.”
Whether reflecting on her global travels or her professional journey, Wilson encourages current Wheeler students to stay open to new experiences inside and outside of the classroom.
“You’re a more valuable asset to yourself in the world if you have a more diverse education,” she says. “You can get stuck in a class that you might not think that you want to be interested in, and then you might find out that you actually have a knack for that class or you love that topic. So be open-minded to different fields of study.
“It’s just great to have a good foundation, because no matter where you go after Wheeler, having that experience is so valuable,” she notes. “It will be a great foundation for everything else that you’re going to do in your life.”
We are grateful to Wilson for thinking about her Wheeler foundation from the literal ends of the earth. Here’s to all the adventures of our curious alums!
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